


Keep You Grounded

by danithegirl



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Grayson (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Blood, minor descriptions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danithegirl/pseuds/danithegirl
Summary: Dick is hit with a hallucinogenic on patrol and is having some very unwanted flashbacks of his time in Spyral. Jason does what he can.





	Keep You Grounded

**Author's Note:**

> Like I mentioned in the tags, there are some very mild descriptions of blood and mentions of a hallucinogenic Dick was drugged with, but nothing worse than what you would read in the actual comics. I've had this idea in my head for like a million years, so I'm really glad to finally be posting it. Enjoy!

“Dick?”

The voice calls him, reverberating in the walls of the bathroom, wavering. Dick keeps his head down, forehead against the cool porcelain countertop. The voice behind him sounds like Tim, but at the same time, it doesn’t. His mind keeps slipping around thoughts, never able to grasp them, like water and oil. His whole body feels like that. He feels sick, but in an abstract way. Dizzy, nauseous, like if he raises his head his brain would slip right out through his ears. So he keeps his head down, body hunched over the counter. 

“Dick?” The voice comes again, and this time Dick is even less sure it’s Tim. It’s thin, maybe even scared, but his brain can’t tell him why. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles. It isn’t a question, but a reassurance. An ‘I’ll be okay’ to whoever he is talking to. 

There is a long pause where he figures the person—maybe Tim—is figuring out what to do, but after the silence stretches for a good thirty seconds, his mind starts to toy with him again. He’s hit with the strong scent of gasoline and dry air, and the sudden change nearly makes him gag. Wasn’t he in the manor earlier? Or maybe on patrol? Why does it now smell like…

His head snaps up, which makes everything spin and his legs weak. The mirror he thought was in front of him is now a window, black and streaked with dirt and muck. Looking at his own reflection, though, he realizes he doesn’t look much better. There is dirt and sand everywhere—dried in his hair, caked into his uniform, under his fingernails, making his lips chapped and dry. His whole body is covered with a thin layer of dirt, except for the trail of blood leaking from his eyes. Stark red against the dryness of his skin, making his eyelashes clump together uncomfortably. Every time he blinks, the blood and mud make his eyelashes stick, but he can’t do anything besides stare. 

“Dick.” There is a deeper voice now. Not Tim... was Tim here earlier?

He continues to stare into the grimy window, watch the blood drip over his cheeks and fall from his chin. There are voices again behind him, quieter, talking amongst themselves. That deep voice is one of them, and Tim may be there too. Without his permission, his mouth opens. “Tiger?”

The speaking continues, and then it grows quieter. His head still feels like it’s floating, so he lets it drop down to hang between his shoulders. A hand drops down to land on his shoulder, and he almost flinches on instinct. 

Then, the deep voice speaks again. “Dick, whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.” Dick blinks, feeling his eyelashes stick together. “There’s a hallucinogenic in your system.” The hand stays on his shoulder. 

“Tiger?” His voice sounds pitifully hopeful, even to his own ears. 

“No, Dick, look at me.” The hand on his shoulder manhandles him around until he raises his head and his eyes land on a familiar face. 

“Jason?” Dick asks, confused. “What…”

“You’re in the manor, Dick. We brought you back here. You were hit with a hallucinogenic.” 

Had he already said that? Dick turns his head down to look at his bare feet. Solid tile beneath them, a smudge of blood beneath his heel. 

“Oh,” Dick says dumbly. Jason hesitates for a second before stepping around him to the sink. Dick continues to stare at the blood on the floor. Another drop of it drips from his chin and splashes on his foot. He figures his eyes are still bleeding. “Sorry,” he says to Jason. He has never wanted his family to see him like this. The Hypnos was awful. Useful, sure, but it always felt like he was willingly giving up some control. Or maybe even all control. He was naïve in the beginning to think he was the one controlling the Hypnos. It was proved time and time again that the Hypnos had control over him—or rather people had control of him through the Hypnos. Once he knew that, giving in to Hypnos felt like giving up. He had given up. His eyes must be bleeding. 

Jason’s bare feet step back into view, and a hand taps his chin. Dick obliges and lifts his head, letting Jason wipe his face with a wet washcloth. “You idiot, your forehead is still bleeding,” Jason grumbles distractedly. 

Dick blinks and reaches to feel at his eyes. “My…eyes?”

Jason swats his hands away and creases his brow. “No, your forehead.”

Dick lets his eyes fall shut as Jason wipes the blood from his face, gently running it over his eyes and removing it from his eyelashes. He keeps them closed as Jason fiddles with something else, then presses something against his forehead. “Done,” he says. 

Dick opens his eyes and realizes how heavy they were suddenly. He turns to the mirror and inspects himself. His face is clean, there is a bandaid just at his hairline, and somehow all the dirt on his body has been washed away. Was it ever there?

Jason hands are back on his shoulders, guiding him out of the bathroom and down the dark hall. It is quiet as they walk, still and eerie like the manor always is late at night. Suddenly, Dick’s hit with the smell again. Gasoline, and dirt, and desert air. He stops in his tracks, looking around the hallways and through the dark windows for a source of the smell, but finds none. Empty halls, towering ceilings, cold air swirling outside of the tall windows. He realizes Jason has stopped with him. 

“You’re in the manor, Dick. I’m here with you.” Jason sounds unsure, almost wary, but it’s obvious he is trying to help. 

Dick turns to look his little brother up and down. Clean face, clean hair, clean hands. A pang of relief stabs at his chest and he nods. “I know.” 

Dick starts walking once more, allowing himself to be guided up the stairs, allowing the smell of the desert to fall to the back of his mind. When they reach Dick’s room, Jason opens the door and pulls him inside. Dick instinctively moves to pull his gloves off, but realizes his hands were bare. Jason notices the motion but ignores it in favor of leading Dick to the bed. He stands back to let Dick get under the covers on his own, and Dick hears the voice that Jason had once used after Dick was hit with fear toxin. ‘I’m not tucking you into bed though, you weirdo.’ And he never does. When things like this happen, Jason never coddles him, always pretends to be indifferent or forced into the situation, but in the end he always stick around with Dick through the night. 

Once Dick is under the covers, Jason wordlessly picks up the book from the nightstand and goes around to the other side of the bed. He settles on top of the covers silently, an increasingly familiar routine after Dick gets injured or hit with fear toxin. 

He opens the book up to where Dick had stuck a bookmark last time he read, and begins reading The Book Thief aloud.

Jason scans the words for a moment before starting at the first sentence at the top of the page. He clears his throat and begins. “He stood waist deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His pants clung to him, and he did not stop walking.” Jason keeps his voice low, which makes it naturally dip slightly lower than normal, but Dick doesn’t seem to mind. He tries to remember this spot in the book himself as he continues. “In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief’s kiss.” Jason remembers now. The scene where Rudy jumps into the freezing river to save Liesel’s book. “He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them.” 

Dick stirs then, eyes still closed. “Happier spot,” he mumbles. Jason looks down at him in question, humming for clarification. “Go to a happier spot in the book,” Dick says tiredly. 

Jason hesitates. “Do you… want me to get a different book? I mean if you want a happy story, this one is a little… I mean the narrator is…”

Dick shakes his head. “Go to the part when Max goes outside.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted a happy scene?” Jason asks, amused. 

Dick cracks his eyes open at this to look at Jason, and the second their eyes meet, his resolve crumbles immediately. Jason frowns and starts flipping through the pages, irritated. “You’re a cheater, you know. You watched the movie before the book, so you already know what’s going to happen,” he grumbles. 

Dick closes his eyes again and settles. Jason skims over pages, trying to find the spot Dick was talking about. He listens to his brother’s breathing, noting that it has calmed from the erratic pattern it had an hour earlier when they dragged him out of the batmobile. 

It wasn’t fear gas that had effected him, just a hallucinogenic, but Jason figured with the traumas they all had anyways, it wasn’t much better. He isn’t sure what Dick had seen – or heard, or felt – but he could have some sympathy, at least. It didn’t look like Dick was reliving anything good, and the panic written on Tim’s face when he found Jason for help hadn’t looked good either. 

As it was, Dick is now safe in his bed, Bruce’s antidote slowly working it’s way through his system, and letting Jason read to him. So it could be worse. 

Jason falls on a good page to pick up from, and he clears his throat again, making a mental note to yell at Dick later for skipping around in the book. He looks down to make sure Dick is still okay, he finds a good place to start, and he begins.

**Author's Note:**

> This was roughly based on events within the Grayson comics (the mentions of Tiger and hypnos, and his memories of the desert). I HIGHLY recommend those comics if you're a Dick Grayson fan!! Feel free to critique and give me suggestions to help my writing! Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
